


Unregulated

by MiniNephthys



Category: End Roll (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 17:52:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8023399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiniNephthys/pseuds/MiniNephthys
Summary: Russell's friends ask too few questions.





	Unregulated

Russell has sort of given up on explaining things by now. As strange as this world can seem to him at times, the townspeople take things like monsters creeping around at night, eyes growing on trees, mailboxes corrupting into unusability, and every kind of bizarre talking species from cats to kelp with little more than a shrug and “well, that’s how things are”.

They’d needed a little bit more explanation for why they were fighting against Walter’s samples, but that had ultimately only required Russell to stretch the truth a little: a visitor from out of town was doing research on the local monsters and wanted them to fight artificial versions of them for his studies. And that had worked just fine.

“Do you usually have to explain things to the dream-people?” Russell had asked, with the others safely out of earshot.

Walter had shaken his head. “Most dreams have some kind of danger in them, but rarely strong enough monsters to require a full party of four to defeat them. ...Your psyche is exceptionally twisted, in other words.”

So Russell doesn’t have a speech rehearsed for when he opens the purple door to the unregulated space. In his defense, he hadn’t known exactly how… unregulated it was going to be.

“What… what is this place?” Dogma is the first to find words. “I’ve never seen anything like it…”

Tabasa pokes around with his foot, one hand still holding on the doorknob for safety. “It seems like it’s all floor, but it sure doesn’t look that way.”

“...Russell, just where exactly have you led us into?” Kantera asks. “If this can even be called a ‘where’...”

“Um,” Russell says. He can feel himself start to sweat. “I... don’t know?”

There’s a short few moments where none of them speak, and all that can be heard is the unnatural background noise of the unregulated space, static and screaming.

“Let us do our business here as quickly as possible,” Dogma says.

“Yeah. This place gives me the creeps…” Tabasa finally lets go of the doorknob.

Kantera sighs. “As always, Russell, please lead the way.”

Russell should be grateful that it’s that easy. Instead, he asks, “Shouldn’t you ask more questions? I mean, this place is…” He lacks words, and so gestures to the darkness around them as if that would sum up everything going on right now.

“While I would very much like to better understand what this place is,” Kantera says, “I believe I speak for all of us when I say that if you intend to journey here, it doesn’t matter how bizarre it might be. We can’t leave you to handle the monsters in here alone.”

“I couldn’t have put it better myself,” says Dogma.

“Anyway, if you don’t know either, then that’s that,” says Tabasa. “Maybe we’ll figure it out by the time we catch up with those two.”

It’s convenient. Russell recognizes that it’s convenience meant to preserve his dream, at least for now.

But it still makes him smile, and gives him renewed courage to venture into the vast surrounding darkness.


End file.
